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Nintendo Has Revealed The Bizarre Wired Headset For The Switch

The official Splatoon Twitter page has revealed how Nintendo intends to approach online voice chat on their Switch console. It was first announced during their initial Switch presentation that all online communication was going to be done through a smartphone app; no other information was revealed at that time. When fans finally got their hands on the system, they noticed that none of the controllers had headphone jacks (unlike the ones that come with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One). We finally know how Nintendo intends to implement their online voice chat and... it's less than ideal.

According to the Splatoon 2 Twitter post; Nintendo has teamed up with Hori to release a set of compatible headphones that come with a squid-shaped dongle. You need to connect this dongle to your Switch, your smartphone, and the headphones, in order to make this work. This is quite a complex daisy chain of wires, for something that should be relatively simple to implement.

One of the complaints about this system is that the headphone/dongle set seems to come with incredibly short wires. This won't be much of an issue if you are playing in handheld or tabletop mode, but will become a problem if you intend to play the Switch in its docked mode. You're going to want to invest in a long double-ended audio jack if you intend to play Splatoon 2 on your TV.

Via: splatoon.nintendo.com

This seems to be another case of Nintendo overcomplicating a feature that has been done better elsewhere. It would have made a lot more sense to do away with the phone entirely and just included voice chat as part of their online service. They might have at least made all of this wireless and released a Bluetooth headset/dongle. That would also have avoided the problem that certain iPhone users are going to have with this Nintendo headset, as it requires a headphone jack to operate. Newer iPhones rely solely on wireless Bluetooth headsets and won't be compatible with the Nintendo Switch headset/dongle.

Nintendo is known for making games that appeal to all ages, which is why they are so strict when it comes to methods of online communication. That may be part of the reason why their Splatoon 2 voice chat setup is so complex. The Nintendo Switch is an incredible system that has a bright future ahead of it. With that being said, it is easy to fault Nintendo for their outlandish solutions to basic problems.

On the plus side, at least you will be able to wear these headphones in Splatoon 2.